The 'poor door' contradiction

Opposing integration at public-housing projects while demanding it everywhere else is counterproductive.

Affordable-housing advocates are being vexed by two seemingly unrelated issues. They lament that New York City Housing Authority projects are crumbling and that there's no money to fix them. And they complain about tax breaks going to mixed-income apartment complexes with separate entrances for the subsidized tenants.

But the criticism entails a contradiction that advocates and elected officials must come to grips with if the city is to fashion a coherent affordable-housing policy.

Champions of public housing insist that not a square inch of NYCHA land be used for market-rate apartments, which would generate revenue to build and repair affordable units on authority sites. Yet these defenders of 100% low-income housing on public land demand a perfectly communal mix of incomes everywhere else.

Where to begin? Start with concentrating the poor into isolated campuses of high-rises with no street grid and no (legal) commercial activity: This has failed miserably. The projects are known for crime, unemployment, budget deficits and dilapidation, not to mention hopelessness. And they have not sated the demand for affordable housing.

Then, consider the tax-abatement reform that brought us the so-called "poor doors": It was designed by the same folks who now bemoan the separate entrances. Crafted by Assembly Democrats in consultation with affordable-housing advocates, the reform expanded the areas in the city where builders have to create affordable units to qualify for property-tax breaks—and required those cheaper units to be on site. (The abatement program previously allowed the affordable dwellings to be elsewhere.) The point was to usher poor families into neighborhoods with good schools, transit, jobs and safety so they could escape the cycle of poverty. It was not to give them subsidized Central Park views, fancy lobbies, spas and rooftop swimming pools.

Banning separate entrances would reduce projects' profits and thus curtail the creation of affordable units in thriving neighborhoods. It would be criminal not to build quality housing for thousands of poor families so that a handful might get apartments in luxury buildings.

By the same token, it makes no sense to forbid market-rate dwellings at NYCHA sites. The agency's tenants desperately need the repairs that these apartments would pay for as well as the shared advocacy for better schools, parks and security that wealthier residents would bring.

Opposing integration at public-housing projects while demanding it at private ones is not just contradictory. It's counterproductive.